Rep. Matthew Hill's 2004 "Grassroots" Campaign My Ass...The 7th District Was "Home-Fooled"

Geeze, do you still remember how the 2004 7th House District candidate Matthew Hill went yammering on and on and on like a non-stop Weird Al record with his "grassroots campaign? And doesn't the term "grassroots" to most people more properly describe a "home grown" and "local" political movement --- but what about Hill campaign workers that he imported from the "McMinn, Meigs, Monroe county area"? In case you might have forgotten (sorry about dredging all that Matthew prattle up again), I found a quote for Hill's now defunct 2004 campaign web site that had been saved as a cache file on the internet:

Matthew Hill (www.matthewlistens.com - grassroots [2004])
Successful campaigns are dependent upon volunteers at the grassroots level. Without your help, we cannot win this election. Please take a minute to fill out the form below. A lot of people doing a few things each with a common goal is what will ensure our victory in this election. Thank you for your efforts and for taking the time to get involved.

Well, I checked-out some of Matthew Hill's 2004 so-called "grassroots" support team members --- and they read more like the phony "astroturf-roots" workers:

Legal Issues Relating to Homeschooling


Current Issues Relating to Homeschooling

We frequently get e-mails from Cory Bennet at SMHEA, other regional homeschool leaders, or from HSLDA. We will try to post them here for your reference, in case you did not receive them.

8/8/04 From Cory Bennet: Mike Bell is a member of the Tennessee Home Education Association Board of Directors and the President of the Mid-Southeast chapter of THEA located in the McMinn, Meigs, Monroe county area. Mike also is the homeschool lobbyist for THEA and works with the state legislature to defend our freedoms. THEA and SMHEA are 501 (c)(3) organizations limited by law in our ability to invest more than a small percentage of our efforts in anything that could be deemed political. Here is an opportunity to make a difference through an organization that is free to pursue political activities.

You can contact Mike at the address below.

Dear fellow home educators,

Bobbie Patray (Director of Tennessee Eagle Forum), called me today and told me she was going to be co-hosting the Steve Gill show on 99.7 WTN Tuesday morning from 5:30 to 9:00 central time. Steve is on vacation next week and Bobbie was asked to be one of host for Tuesday. She called me today and asked me to call in and do a segment with her and maybe take some calls on home schooling and the election. This could be fun. Please pray for me and Bobbie and listen if you can.

Now let me catch up on some business. Claiborne Thornton (president of the Tennessee Home Education Association) and I have started a PAC (Political Action Committee). The name of the PAC isThe Tennessee Home Education Family PAC. It's purpose is to be a vehicle for the home school community to endorse candidates and to organize home school families to work for friendly candidates. I am in the process of putting together a candidate survey. We will endorse candidates from how they answer this survey. We endorsed two candidates in the primary and both of them won! One of the races was expected to win and one was to tell you the truth a shock to me even though I worked in it. We endorsed Susan Lynn in the 57th district and Matthew Hill in the seventh district. Hill beat longtime incumbent Bob Patton. I made four trips to Johnson City. Nathan, my son, lived with Hill and his wife and worked twelve hours a day for the last two weeks of the campaign. On election day I took 6 students with me up there to work the polls. We beat Patton by less than 400 votes. Patton was one of Naifeh's republican stooges in the house. He voted for the income tax two years ago and if you remember Patton was the only republican to vote against the Woods amendment to equalize homeschoolers scores for the lottery scholarships. Hill is a twenty-five years old and new to the district he lives in. Hill, as far as I know, will be the first person who was home schooled to serve in the state legislature if he wins in November[sic].

The 7th district has traditionally voted republican. Now for the tough part. The PAC needs money to operate. So far we have spent very little money. What money we have spent has come out of my pocket. I have bought the kids food who have worked with me and the time I had in Hill's race. But in the next week I need to mail out surveys to all the candidates and we need to have a web site built. I think I am going to be able to get some seed money this weekend that will cover those cost but we will need more. If any of you could help with this or know someone who would want to help fund a conservative PAC let me know.

Sincerely, Mike Bell

Rep. Hill is also --- as far as I know from having regularly listening to him on "Good Morning Tri-Cities" --- the first self-admitting "special ed math student" to serve in the legislature...

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Bobbie Patray, volunteer lobbyist for the Eagle Forum, said she and others will try to sway senators against a lottery.

"We don't think it's good government policy. It expands government when government gets into the gambling business.

"States that fashion their lotteries like the Hope scholarships in Georgia are finding that the money coming in is not enough to fund the scholarships and they have to come up with other money to fund them," Patray said.

"And there is an explosion of gambling among teens, and lotteries seem to be the gateway to gambling for teens. When teenagers are becoming addicted to gambling at twice to four times the rate of adults, that should give us pause to think before we put a gambling outlet on every street corner."